12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
15 “Theland of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, Bythe way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: 16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heavenis at hand.”
After the kingdom of Israel split into two separate kingdoms, the king of the northern kingdom thrust Israel into the darkness of idolatry. Jeroboam, son of Nebat, built golden calves at Dan and Bethel, the northernmost and southernmost cities of Israel. King after king refused to remove these idols and encouraged Israel into deeper spiritual darkness. As punishment, the Lord allowed the king of Assyria to deport the people of Israel and replace the exiled population with heathen peoples who mixed their false beliefs with the true faith. The land that God had formerly given to the Israelite tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali land eventually became known as Galilee of the Gentiles.
Yet the Lord promised through the prophet Isaiah that the people who dwelled in the darkness of idolatry would one day see a great light. The words of Isaiah are fulfilled when Jesus departs for the region of Galilee to dwell in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee. Christ Jesus is the “light and life of men” (John 1:4). He shined in the darkness of Zebulun and Naphtali by proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at hand and is to be entered by repentance and faith in the gospel. He especially blesses this area by choosing to dwell in Capernaum and doing many works of power there.
Jesus is still that light that shines in the world which is darkened by sin and idolatry. His word reveals the idols in our hearts which we fear, love, and trust more than our Father in heaven, whether our idols be possessions, relationship, or lifestyles He hasn’t given. Christ enlightens our hearts so that we repent of our idols and flee to Him for perfect forgiveness for every sin, which He reveals to us in the gospel. Believing the gospel, His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, teaching us how to walk as children of the light.
Let us pray: Gracious Lord, illumine our hearts by Your law so we repent of fearing, loving, and trusting other things more than you, and drive away the darkness of our sins by Your gospel so that we may walk as children of light. Amen.
Posted inDevotion|Comments Off on Each Day in the Word, Saturday, January 14th
12 Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.
14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, andthe kingdom of Godis at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
In these brief verses Mark shows us that Jesus wasn’t immune from the devil’s temptations, the dangers of this life, and persecution. Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. He was in danger of wild beasts in the wilderness as well. His forerunner, John, was persecuted, imprisoned for preaching that Herod was sinning and needed to repent, be baptized, and bear fruits worthy of repentance. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the devil and the world were set against the gospel and ministry.
The devil and the world continually attack Christ and His apostles throughout their ministries with temptations. Paul tells the Corinthians that he was often “in perils in the wilderness” ( 2 Cor 11:26), and the book of Acts and the church histories tell us of the persecutions the apostles faced. There is an important lesson for us in this. Christ is the Head of the body, which is His church. As it goes for the Head, so it goes for the body. Christians should not be shocked when they are tempted by the devil, in worldly danger, or persecuted for God’s word.
Christ was tempted by the devil to doubt God’s Word. We are tempted in the same way so that we put their trust in ourselves, our own hearts, the government, the economy, or anything other than our heavenly Father. Christ was persecuted, slandered, blasphemed, and eventually crucified. The Church through the ages has similarly been persecuted whenever she has remained faithful to Christ’s Word and preached against—and lived contrary to—the world’s sin.
The Lord allows Satan to tempt Christians, not to punish them, but to exercise them in their faith and use of the word. He allows Christians to face worldly dangers to teach them to flee to Him in faith an prayer. He allows the world to persecute His Christians so that we rely not on our own strength and resources, but God’s promises. As it went for the Head, so it goes for the body, and, as the Head was victorious, so is His the body.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, protect in us in every temptation, danger, and persecution we face, so that we may overcome by faith and rejoice in Your provision. Amen.
Posted inDevotion|Comments Off on Each Day in the Word, Friday, January 13th
4 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4 But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written,‘Man shall not live by bread alone,but by every word of God.’”
5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
8 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!For it is written,‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
9 Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,’
11 and,
‘Intheirhands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
12 And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said,‘You shall nottempt the Lord your God.’”
13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
Every temptation we face is like Jesus’ temptations in that every temptation entices us away from believing and living our baptismal identity. The Triune God adopts us as His beloved children in baptism and is pleased with us because we are covered with Christ’s righteousness. Our temptations, whatever they may be, are temptations to doubt our baptismal identity.
Every temptation we face also fits under the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. The temptation to turn stones to bread is a temptation to lose faith in God’s promises. “If you are really God’s son, then why do you lack?” The temptation to throw Himself from temple pinnacle is the temptation to presumption, so that we apply God’s word to ourselves outside of our callings or contrary to the meaning of His word. “If you are really God’s son, you should be able to do whatever you want and He will protect you.” The temptation to worship the devil in exchange for the kingdoms of this world is the temptation to attain the things of the world by adopting the ways of the world, rather than allow God to give those things to us according to His will in His time. “If you are really God’s son, why do the unbelieving heathen have a better life than you?” Whenever the devil, the world, or our own flesh tempts us, the temptation is a variation on these.
Jesus defeats the devil on our behalf, in His flesh, so that He might defeat the devil in us and our flesh each day. When we are tempted to disbelief God’s Word, to presume God will protect us no matter what we do, or to go along with the world to get ahead, we remember our baptismal identity. We remember that we are sons of God, and sons of God do not think, say, or do that which the devil, world, and flesh wants us to think, say, and do. We want to do the will of our heavenly Father. Believing that He has given us His Holy Spirit, we resist the devil until He flees from us.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, keep us mindful of the identity you give us in Holy Baptism, so that in the midst of temptations we may overcome and be victorious by believing the promises you give us in your word. Amen.
Posted inDevotion|Comments Off on Each Day in the Word, Thursday, January 12th
Isaiah 42:1-7 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 3:13-17
What do we human beings have in common with Jesus by nature, according to our natural birth? Well, human flesh and blood, a human body and soul, a common descent from Adam and Eve, and some experiences that are common to all human beings. Beyond that? Nothing. Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God. We aren’t. Jesus is the very image of God, pure, spotless, and clean, not only according to His divine nature, but also according to His human nature. We are, by nature, sinful and unclean, having inherited the sinful image of our first father, Adam, which Jesus, being born of a virgin mother, didn’t inherit from Adam. Jesus is righteous; but God says that no one else is righteous, by nature. Jesus is good; we are, by nature, evil. Jesus is light; we are, by nature, darkness. Jesus, with His righteous life, earned His Father’s favor and eternal life; we, with our unrighteous lives, have earned our God’s displeasure and eternal death. Jesus is the Savior of sinners; we are the sinners whom He came to save.
But how? The first step was taking on our human flesh in the first place, becoming our Brother. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, since we have flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in it, too. The eternal Son of God came into the flesh to become like sinners, to have something in common with us in order that we might have much more in common with Him.
That brings us to today’s Gospel. In the Gospel we hear of this other thing that not everyone has in common with Jesus, and yet all men are invited to have it in common with Jesus, even as all of you here have it common with Jesus. In the Gospel, we hear that Jesus was baptized.
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. Luke tells us that Jesus was about thirty years old at this time when He stepped forward to be baptized. What had He been doing for thirty long years? Growing, in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man, as we heard on Sunday. Living the life of an average Jewish child and then man. Nothing uncommon, really, and yet very uncommon to us, because it was all done without sin. It was all done without complaining or whining at His parents. It was all done without the typical self-centeredness of childhood, without the narcissistic focus on self and self-image that typically describes the teenage years, without the rebellion of youth and the pleasure-seeking of the flesh and the worrying about the future that occupies the rest of our race. He lived His life perfectly, humbly, compassionately, with love for His Father in heaven and love for His neighbor—always!
But then Jesus came to John for this extraordinary thing called Baptism. He came to John, and John tried to prevent Him. Of course he did. Thirty-plus years earlier this same John leapt for joy in his mother’s womb as Jesus approached in His mother’s womb. You remember that encounter between Elizabeth and Mary? The Holy Spirit had taught John who Jesus was since before either of them was born.
We don’t know how much, if any interaction John had with Jesus up until this time. But we do know that John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John was a penitent sinner baptizing penitent sinners. They had everything in common. But as Jesus approached, John knew that Jesus was different; that Jesus had no need to repent of anything, nor did He have any sins that needed washing away. “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”
It’s a complete reversal, the opposite of the way things are supposed to be. The sinless One approaches the sinner for help. The sinless One goes to the place where sins are washed away and insists on being washed in that very same water. It had to be this way, Jesus says. “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
To fulfill all righteousness. Why did God the Father consider it a righteous thing for His already-righteous Son to be baptized by John? Because it was God’s chosen way of connecting sinners to the sinless One, a way that’s “easy,” a way that’s available to practically everyone (unlike circumcision in the Old Testament). Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, brings His righteousness to this Sacrament so that all who participate in Holy Baptism might have a righteousness to take away from Baptism—not their own righteousness that comes from doing good works, but the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of Christ that is credited to the account of all who believe and are baptized. When sinners are baptized, they don’t walk away from those waters with their sins still being charged against them. Instead, their sins are washed away, and Jesus’ righteousness is washed onto them; they walk away clothed with Christ.
Now, when Jesus was baptized, a miraculous event took place. Behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And suddenly, several things become clear.
First, that God is the Father, who has one—and only one—beloved Son, and that the Spirit of God proceeds from the Father to the Son (and then, of course, from the Son to the world). You heard in the Old Testament reading today from Isaiah about these three Persons in one God. Did you catch it? “Behold! (says God the Father) My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! (that’s the Son) I have put My Spirit upon Him; (there’s the Spirit) And now, here are the three distinct Persons of the Holy Trinity, in perfect harmony and unity at the Baptism of Jesus. One God in Three Persons. The same God whose name is placed upon us when we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
It also becomes clear, with the help of Isaiah’s prophecy, what purpose Baptism served for Jesus Himself. This was His formal ordination, His inauguration ceremony into the official duties as the Christ, the Anointed One—anointed with water, anointed with the Holy Spirit. Everything that Isaiah said about the Servant of the Lord, the Elect One—the Chosen one of God—was said about Jesus. That He would be the source of righteousness for the nations—the righteousness that is applied to us by Baptism and by faith.
The other thing that is made clear here at the Baptism of Jesus is God the Father’s love for His Son, and His approval of His Son. Which of us wouldn’t want to hear these words spoken of us by God, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father spoke those words, not just about Jesus as the eternal Son of God, but also about Jesus as the perfectly righteous Son of Man.
None of us—no one on earth—deserves to have those words spoken about him or her. But here, in the Person of Jesus Christ, God has approached sinners by taking on our human flesh. And here at the Baptism of Our Lord, God has given us a way to have everything in common with Him, including this perfect love and perfect approval.
What do you have in common with Jesus? Jesus was baptized; you have been baptized. This is the thing that Christians have in common with Christ that the rest of the world can’t claim. And if you are baptized into Christ, then everything that is His is yours. He is the beloved Son of God. So are you. He is declared to be well-pleasing to God His Father. So are you. He died to sin once for all. And so did you, for, as Paul says, you were buried with Christ through baptism into death. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So, you, too, have also been made alive together with Christ, so that you may go and sin no longer, and then, one day, have your body raised from the dead, just like His was.
Of course, you get the rest, too, as baptized believers in Christ; you have more in common with Him. Christ was hated by the world. You, too, will be hated by the world, if you live according to your Baptism. The glory of Christ was hidden behind shame and the cross. So your glory, too, will remain hidden behind shame and the cross. And just as Christ lived to please His Father in heaven and to serve His neighbor in love, so also we who share a common Baptism with Him must live to please our Father in heaven and to serve our neighbor in love just as our baptized Brother did—not to earn God’s favor with works of the law, but because we are sons of God in common with Christ, through faith in Christ.
Now, consider your calling, brothers, as Paul said to the Corinthians in the Epistle. God has chosen people who are foolish, weak, and despised to be brought into Christ, and through Christ, into the eternal kingdom of God. You are the ones God wanted to have everything in common with. That’s amazing! That’s grace! And it all starts and it all flows from this divine promise that we have in Holy Baptism—this Baptism that we have in common with Christ, so that we may have all things in common with Christ, who has become for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Amen.
43 The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.”44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46 And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold,an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”
48 Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49 Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”51 And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you,hereafteryou shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Jesus tells Nathaniel, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” Nathaniel responds, “How do You know me?” Jesus says to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Jesus could see what Nathaniel was doing because He is the eternal Son of God in human flesh and “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9).
The Lord says in Jeremiah 23:23, “Am I a God near at hand,’ says the LORD, ‘And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?’ says the LORD.” David confesses in Psalm 139 that the Lord knows all his ways. He even understands our thoughts from afar. The intertestamental wise man writes, “No thought escapes him, and nothing is hidden from him” (Sirach 42:20). Nathaniel experiences Jesus divine omniscience and confesses, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Christ knows us as He knew Nathaniel. He is acquainted with all our ways. He even knows the thoughts that we hide from others. Christ’s omniscience is both law and gospel for us. It is law in that He knows every thought in our heads and each wicked imagination in our sinful hearts. Just because others may not know our sinful impulses, Christ knows them. This should lead us to repent of our sinful thoughts and ask God to purify our hearts and minds as soon as we experience those thoughts.
Christ’s omniscience is also gospel for us. He knows us entirely—our concerns, our anxieties, and our hopes. We can pray with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties” (Ps 139:23). He knows our anxieties and worries and invites us to cast them upon Him because He cares for us. We can also pray with David, “See if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:24).
Let us pray: O Lord Jesus Christ, cleanse our thoughts by Your Holy Spirit. Give us pure thoughts and desires that we may serve you joyfully. Remind us always to cast all our anxieties upon You because You care for us. Amen.
Posted inDevotion|Comments Off on Each Day in the Word, Wednesday, January 11th
